Small-Town Secrets

Bree was celebrating the wrap-up of a tough case and was eager to watch her stepson help win the league championship. She’d turned to say something to Fitz when she noticed his gaze focused toward a dark corner. The curse that dropped from his lips would have cost him a five dollar bill in the family Cuss Jar.

“What?”

“Looks like a drug buy going down,” he murmured.

Bree kept a smile on her lips, but her expression had turned all-cop.

“Anyone we know?”

“That kid I said looks like a moron? The one who was hanging around Sara.”

“You’ve called every boy who’s even talked to her a moron.” Bree slid her gaze sideways, now seeing what he did. There was no doubt the boy was handing over a few plastic bags of pills to another boy, who gave him several bills. Damn, not one security officer around.

“Wanna be my backup?” he asked.

“Since this is more my jurisdiction than yours, it’s more like you’d be mine.” She thought of her weapon, nestled comfortably in the small of her back. Since she’d come directly from the station, she refused to leave her weapon in her SUV, even with it locked. “Nobody’s taken anything over state lines, bud.”

“He’s mine.” Fitz moved forward. “Sorry, guys, you’re busted. FBI,” he called out, just as he reached them. “Just stand easy and it will be painless for everyone.”

Bree saw the dark flash of metal before Fitz did. She instantly reached for her weapon.

“Gun!” she shouted, swinging her weapon up. “L.A. Sheriff! Put it down! Put it down now!” she screamed, infusing her voice with authority.

The boy swung around, saw her, and panic filled his face. He looked at Fitz and shot. Bree fired her gun just as the boy shot at her.

She felt the fire enter her chest the same moment she saw Fitz drop to his knees. The stunned look on his face told her he hadn’t fully realized what had just happened.

But she knew. There was too much blood flowing out of him. The bullet must have nicked an artery, because with every heartbeat, more blood gushed. She tried to get to him, but her body failed her. All she could reach was the tip of his finger.

As the world turned dark around her, she heard the screams and the roar of the crowd.

“Touchdown!”

Chapter 1

There was too much blood for one person. It covered her hands and clothing. No one could lose this much blood and survive. She looked down at the man lying lifeless in her arms.

“Fitz!” She sat upright in bed, positive her screams echoed off the walls.

There was no pounding on her door. No demands to know if she was all right. At least the scream remained in her head. This time.

Bree’s fingers trembled as she pushed a damp lock of hair away from her face.

She’d thought the dream had finally left her. It was bad enough, dreaming of Fitz’s death, but having each episode detail it differently only made it worse. In reality she hadn’t held his dying body in her arms. His blood hadn’t covered her hands. When she fell after being shot, only her fingertips had been able to touch him before she lost consciousness.

The dream was her punishment for not being able to save him. From the first time she’d had it, she saw it that way.

Fitz dying in her arms. Fitz never having a chance to say a word to her nor Bree given the chance to say anything to him. No goodbye. No “I love you.”

She pulled her pillow around, holding it tight against her chest as she rocked back and forth. She ignored the voices that screamed inside her head. After all this time, it was getting easier to overlook them.

“Dammit, Fitz, you weren’t supposed to die that night,” she whispered, feeling the anger build up as it had so many other nights. Anger that didn’t exactly override the pain but merely accompanied it. “You were supposed to be here when David graduated from high school. I need you to help keep the boys away from Sara and just watch…” she blinked rapidly to keep the tears from falling “…just watch Cody grow up.”

She knew she had to be up in three hours, but didn’t bother trying to fall back to sleep. Past experience taught her it would only mean a return to her dream. Instead, she lay back with the pillow nestled in her arms. It was a poor substitute.

“I knew we shouldn’t have moved here. I couldn’t sleep all night because of all the horrible noises I heard,” Sara Fitzpatrick announced in the dramatic tone only a fifteen-year-old girl could adopt. “Either we have ghosts in this house or there’s rats in the wall.”

“Rats?” six-year-old Cody asked, wide-eyed with horror. He swiveled to face his mother. “Big rats like in that movie?”

Bree shot her stepdaughter a silent warning. “According to the inspector who went through the house for me before we moved in, there are no rats in this house,” she said. “You have to remember this is an old house. Old houses make noises.”

“Right,” David muttered, as he spooned raspberry jam onto a slice of toast. “The Addams family would love this wreck.”

“Enough,” Bree said firmly, noting her youngest son’s distress. She cut the omelette she’d made in two and slid half on another plate, placing it in front of Sara.

Sara recoiled as if the plate held a nest of vipers.

“That is loaded with cholesterol and fat!” She pushed the offending plate toward David. He shrugged and picked up his fork.

If time hadn’t been running against her, Bree would have confronted her daughter on her eating habits. Or lack of. She knew she would have to have a long, heartfelt talk with Sara that evening. But now she had to get them all out of the house and off to school. She also couldn’t afford to be late her first day on the job.

She still resented her superior for giving her the choice of either taking a desk job or finding a position in a smaller town. Bree knew the lieutenant had her best interests in mind. He’d told her that enough times. She’d fought it as long as she could, just as she fought the tension that took over anytime she approached the scene of a violent crime.

She felt she would have worked through it if it hadn’t been for that last crime scene. She’d walked into a living room that would have been warm and homey if it hadn’t been for the blood staining the walls and furniture. A man brutally murdered by a former business associate and a wife sitting in the kitchen, silent from the shock of coming home to find her husband dead.

The memories had flooded Bree’s mind so swiftly she’d almost shut down functioning. Lieutenant Carlson took one look at her when she returned to the station and knew what had happened. Twenty-four hours later, she was called into his office and given a choice: take a desk job, or better yet, take a post where she wouldn’t have so much pressure.

Bree hated him for forcing her to make the decision. He knew she wouldn’t like being chained to a desk. He knew her so well that he had already called in favors and found her a detective’s position in Warm Springs, a small inland town northeast of San Diego. His reason for choosing the community was the low crime rate in the area. San Diego was an hour’s drive away for times when the family wanted more sophisticated entertainment, he told her. And Bree should expect him and his wife down there in a few years when he retired.

She resented Lieutenant Carlson for pretty much accepting the position on her behalf.

And the kids resented her for going along with it.

From the day they moved out of their home in Woodland Hills, they’d made sure she knew they weren’t happy with her decision.

Bree bolted down her breakfast and set the plate in the dishwasher. “You don’t think you’ll have any problem finding the high school?” she asked David. “Or the grade school when you go to pick up Cody?”

Instead of the good humor he usually displayed, his expression was almost sullen. “Oh yeah, I’ll have a tough time finding two schools that are all of two blocks apart in a town that’s, what? Three blocks total?” he muttered, taking his own dishes over to the dishwasher. He may have been angry with his stepmother for the move, but he was responsible enough to not ignore his chores.

Bree took whatever small favors she could get. She looked at her stepson and saw her husband in the handsome features that she knew would one day be stamped with his sire’s character. All these months, they’d dealt with anger over Fitz’s death. Then they’d moved from a city they’d lived in all their lives. Abandoned friends, familiar places. She told herself the old cliché about time healing all wounds. She was learning about patience.

Although David never said a word, she knew he had to be hurt and angry that he left behind his football team during his all-important year. And he registered at his present school too late to try out for football. He’d muttered he’d try out for the baseball team and she hoped he would.

She handed Cody’s backpack to him, verified that all three children had lunch money, and herded Cody into her Expedition, with Jinx, her K-9, hopping into the back seat. The German shepherd sat down with his tongue lolling happily in anticipation of the ride.

“If I stayed in my old school I would have Mrs. Allen for my teacher,” Cody said with a sigh. “She lets her class do really neat things. And her class has a hamster and two guinea pigs.”

Bree hurt because she knew Cody hurt. She was aware this move was the hardest on her youngest, who was just beginning first grade. She’d hoped that moving here a couple weeks before the beginning of the school year would help. Instead she’d battled with three kids who constantly complained that their new house wasn’t like their old house and there was no one to hang out with. Since his older brother and sister weren’t interested in doing anything he wanted to do, Cody was on his own most of the time, and suffered the most.